Contact sports that involve high-impact hits requires protective equipment to be worn by all players in order to minimize the risk of serious sports injuries. As the consequences of injuries to the head of contact sports players can be particularly serious, leading to concussions and possibly even chronic conditions, protecting contact sports players from repeated hard impacts to the head must be a top priority. However, many existing designs for padding for contact sports helmets suffer from a limited ability to absorb hard impacts. What is needed is an improved padding for a contact sports helmet which addresses at least some of the limitations in the prior art.